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302 pages, Hardcover
First published October 6, 2015
Now, I've heard there was a secret chord
That David payed, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do ya?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Halleluja, Halleluja
Halleluja, Halleluja
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Halleluja, Halleluja
Halleluja, Halleluja
Well, maybe there's a God above
As for me all I've learned from love
Is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
But it's not a crime that you're here tonight
It's not some pilgrim who claims to have seen the Light
No, it's a cold and it's a very broken Hallelujah.
Halleluja, Halleluja
Halleluja, Halleluja
Well people I've been here before
I know this room and I've walked this floor
You see I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But listen love, love is not some kind of victory march, no
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.
Halleluja, Halleluja
Halleluja, Halleluja
"In my time, I have heard even travelers from the court of the pharoh--men speaking in private, who had no need to offer flattery--say that in voice and in musicianship, David has no peer. To me, even now, after so many years of hearing him play almost every day, it remains a marvel, that a man can draw forth such sounds from a piece of wood and some strands of gut. His overlapping harmonies linger and resonate. Not only the ears feel the pleasure from it. You feel the vibration on your skin. The hairs rise on your arms. The pulse, the breath, the very heartbeat. It's a kind of sorcery, a possession of body and spirit. Yet a wholesome one. And there is one chord, one perfect assembly of notes that no other hand can play. The sound of it--pure, rinsing sound, void, so that your spirit seems to rush in to fill the space between the notes. So sublime that the priests asked David to offer it at the sacrifice. . .the music rising up to heaven with the sacred smoke. Every soul that hears it is refreshed and restored."
David's reign (if it did exist):The Biblical David and Solomon, if they existed, did not rule a large kingdom/empire from Jerusalem at the time that the Bible asserts because the population of Judea could not support significant cities, and there is no archaeological evidence for a city at Jerusalem at that time. The Biblical stories are probably composites of memories of Ahab of Israel and Manasseh of Judah, plus wishful thinking and a desire to center religion and power at Jerusalem. The story was probably composed in the period c. 630–540 BC by combining a number of independent texts of various ages. Judean story tellers were motivated to embellish their history to compare favorably to the history of the northern kingdom that was brought into Judea by refugees from the northern kingdom when it fell to the Assyrians.
c. 1010 – 1002 BCE (Judah only)
c. 1002 – 970 BCE (Israel)